Thiel Owners

Yes the MXR/KXR Twenty must be awsome on the 3.7s.I guess some of you guys on this forum own this combo.Ayre is very popular in the US.

Thieliste - I’ve heard an Ayre mxr/kxr combo with the 3.7s and it sounded great. I imagine the 20s will be even better. 

Good advice - thielisteYes, I am working on setting up an audition with the Bryston 4B3 power amp soon.  I want to compare it to the older SST/SST2 designs.  Keep me posted on your Ayre demo.  Happy Listening!

Hi jafant, well still searching as you can see, i spoke with a distributor that told me Dartzeel and Ypsilon will not have enough juice in the bass region do drive my 3.7s.He suggested me strong class A amps or SOTA class AB doubling down to 2 ohms.So here am i looking at the Ayre pre-power.Were you able to demo some amps for you 2.4SE's lately ?

Good to see you - thieliste
How is your pre/power amp search? Hope you are well and enjoying Summer.
Happy Listening!

Anyone heard the Ayre KX-R + MX-R Twenty on CS 3.7s ?I'm looking for end game pre-power combo for my 3.7s with 50K budget.

No. Lobing is inherent in first order filter slopes; it has to do with additive phase physics. If one tried to massage or average the lobed output, it would adversely affect the power response. However, the sloped baffle (rather than discrete steps with on-axis drivers) serves quite well to manage the lobing: the 15° down-lobe launches toward the listener, making a larger vertical window than would otherwise be the case. The combined launch waves from all the drivers blend quite well at 10' listening distance. Closer requires more careful setup.

tomthiel, did these waveguides mitigate lobing issues?

Unsound - the dispersion at the midrange upper end is narrower than the tweeter's lower end. The wave guide creates some directionality at the low end of the tweeter to better match the midrange for smoother image projection vs frequency. They were quite successful in that the polar pattern is more regular vs frequency. Thiel got away from grilles with frames as addressed above, so that element went away. But . . . the shallow midrange cone was engineered as a waveguide for all the coincident drivers. The deep straight-sided back cone supplies strength when triangulated with the shallow, curved front waveguide cone. Wonders never cease.

brayeagle - I suspect your SS2.2 might have been made by Bash, but I am guessing. I'd love your date of purchase and serial number if you can ever manage the wrestle .

Tom, 

I have an SS2.2. I'll have to move it out from the back wall to get the serial number.(It weighs a short ton!) The 2.2 has a different "back panel" than the 2. Looking back, I probably got one of the last ones produced, as when I went back to the dealer a month later to get a second one, he said there were no more.   It's interesting I was able to get the PX05 with a caption for use with the 2.7 speakers. (The PX02 was out of production).  I have not tried it via the LTE input, although the owners manual shows the capability to connect both the passive PX and an LTE at the same time.  

tomthiel, thanks for the grill history! I'm particularly curious about the implementation of the wave guides. What were the goals for their implementation, and to that end how successful where they?

Tom:  thank you so much for the info on the speaker grills.   I posted the link above just because i thought it was interesting.  It does not surprise me a  bit that Thiel speakers would not treat them as an after thought.

  I still remember calling Gary Dayton when i found out that Jim had passed.  Even though i had never met Jim,  i felt really sad about that and wanted to give Gary my condolences

Bray - what is the difference between the SS2 and SS2.2. What is your "late model" serial number?

Bray - I only know the broad outlines from observations and a few conversations. The SW1 came out in 1997 from work Jim had been doing for about 5 years. That was early Class D and incorporated thermistor compensation and shaping circuitry ; the SW1 (2-10") were made in-house. That product became the SS2 in 2004, also made in-house with the 1,2,3,4 line. The unique design required in-house repair, which Jim performed due to his intimate knowledge of the complex circuitry. Jim was sick for a few years before he died in 2009. Sometime in there Bash/Canada began producing the amps, but it seems there was continual struggle to keep the sophisticated particulars in-tact and supported. When New Thiel took over in 2012, they decided to cease support of the line, by then out of warranty (red flag.) My speculation is that manufacture ceased somewhere between 2009 and 2012. I don't have direct knowledge and I don't want to bother Rob with my learning curve. I am gradually assembling my fact base.

Thank You- Tom

Happy Listening!

Tom,
When did they close out the SmartSub line? I was able to get one of the last SS2.2, together with a PX05 that had been modified for the 2.7s. I tried to get another 2.2, but my dealer had closed his Thiel line due to delivery problems.  

Add to the 2.7 development team: Gary Dayton and Lana Ruth.
The design engineering firm was Warkwyn, Ontario. I think the lead designer was Tim Gladwyn. The 2.7 XO is very different from Jim's 3.7 XO. I hope to eventually learn enough to report on the significance.

Jay - when Rob had access to the New Thiel cache when they were closing the Nashville facility, he reported that 3 pairs of the series had been sold. There was inventory, but I don't know how much or what became of them. Rob didn't bite.

oblgny
Good to see you my New York Brother (or north of the Mason-Dixon line).Hope you are well and enjoying Summer with your family. This season is certainly drawing near closure fast, as Fall, approaches.
Happy Listening!

Thank You, as always, Tom Thiel.
shortly after the TT1 launched, I spoke with several Thiel dealers/retailers, and the response was positive. There were a limited amount of reviews as well. All positive among the Audio press. I wonder how many pairs were built? Sold?  Happy Listening!

Meadowlark speakers were also concerned with time alignment/coherence along with exceptional build quality and, depending on your tastes, aesthetics as well.  From what I’ve been able to cull off the interweb thingy, Mr McGinty was a “ poor business man “ who wanted to produce good speakers, period. 

And they are.  From the Kestrels on up they offer remarkably “true” sonics. Although compared to Thiel they struck me as somewhat less lively in the mids and highs, I found them to be one of my personal faves.  My girlfriend still has a pair of Kestrels that I gave her around 5 years ago. While the cabinet veneers could use some refurbishing, the solidity of the cabinets themselves is rather impressive - especially considerate of the fact that they set me back around $500 for the pair. 

Good stuff. 

Prof - thank you for your appreciation. The "live with" factor was an integral part of our designs.

Jay - there are two periods of post Jim Thiel designs: the x.7s including the 2.7 and 1.7 and the MCS?.7 prototype. The physical CS2.7 was principally developed in-house by Kathy Gornik, Rob Gillum and Dawn Cloyd in tribute to Jim's practice of incorporating series 3 breakthroughs into the series 2 at lower cost. Part of that cost savings results from minimizing amortization of development costs of series 3 technologies when applied to the series 2. The 2s have always been bargains.
The electrical engineering was done principally by a Canadian consulting engineering company using the Canadian Research Council anechoic chamber and design facilities. I have been told but do not remember the name of that company. A few outside opinions were also solicited, but did not generate material contributions. Serious $6 figures were consumed developing the 2.7, leading to the need to sell the company. The twos had generally been somewhat "easy" since they benefited from the generosity of the threes.

After the sale things happened fast, but of material consequence is that Bob Brown of Boston-area upper mid-fi experience was brought in as consulting operations manager who brought in Steve DeFuria, a long-time Thiel retailer, knowledgeable insider and sales executive with various Boston-area upper mid-fi brands. Bob and Steve hired Mark Mason formerly of PSB and freelance designer for SVS. Mark determined that Jim's phase-time coherence was not important enough to merit the significant difficulties it caused. The new owners wanted to exploit the name and chose to pursue mass-market Chinese-made products.
The 3rd Avenue Series (TT1, etc.) were developed by Mark Mason with help from New Thiel's considerable in-house engineering chops led by Dennis Crosson. The products are commendable for a new market entrant; but the marketplace was flooded with very good ordinary speakers. They spent upwards of $10million doing the dance that many of us witnessed with sadness and chagrin.

Additional factors tied the hands of the new owners, but those remain behind the curtain until answers might come to light. Jim's copious lab documentation is nowhere to be found.

Thanks for asking.  

prof,

Ditto!

I'm always happier with a company designs speakers to be used with grills on.   This is because I'm not a fan of seeing the speaker drivers.When I see the drivers, I can't help but become more conscious of the process producing the sound I'm hearing.  The highs are coming from that tweeter, the mids from that woofer in front of me, etc.

Once grills are on the speaker becomes a nice piece of furniture in front of me around and between which the sound is occurring, but it's not obviously being generated by the speaker.  I find this much more conducive to the soundstaging/imaging illusion in audio. 


Also, for me the majority of speakers without grills don't look too great - you get a bit more of the made-in-shop vibe when you can see all the different colored drivers, screws etc.  (Though some can look nice).

Though when it comes to grills, I also much prefer that they not look like an afterthought, as on many speakers:  "Ok, here's a pair of grills you can place over the drivers if you really want to!"   An after-thought looking pair of grills - e.g. one that ruins the nice lines of a speaker by sticking out - can also reduce the aesthetics.


This is one reason why my Thiel 2.7s fit the bill for me in many ways.  They are designed to sound right with the grills on, so I don't have to see the drivers.   And they were designed aesthetically with the grills as part of the design - they are inset into the frame making for beautiful smooth clean, integrated lines. 

tomthielThank You for today's Thiel Audio history lesson.  Hopefully your examples, as above, will bring out a few of these owners for models 01,02,03,04 and CS1. I always enjoy and find it all fascinating how the older designs made a gateway to the more modern. Whom designed model TT1 after the CS 3.7 ?
Happy Listening!

First, thanks for the jostle of other phase coherent brands. It also seems that some ultra-expensive European brands are honoring the time domain. (Reminder: engage brain before responding) Cheers.

Regarding grille and grille frames - they, like other design elements, offer opportunities to address problems. Thiel did so from early-on.

Thiel's O1 had a reticulated foam grille. For the O1a, we formulated and sculpted the foam to be ultra thin on-axis and 1" thick off-axis, which attenuated the bounce wave along the baffle to reduce edge diffraction. The O1b sported an ALD (Acoustic Loading Device) - a sandwiched filter, attached to the grille which was nearly invisible on-axis, but further reduced baffle waves. The grilles were nearly universally derided, disregarded or discarded, even though they improved performance considerably. 

The O2 had an "ordinary frame" for a fabric grille, since we learned that audiophiles would remove it anyhow.

The O3 and O3a grilles just covered up felt blocks, etc. on the baffle.

The O4's grille was pretty sophisticated, incorporating a tweeter wave guide, woofer edge-softening profile and port impedance-matching flair. We attached it with serious goo which made it evident it belonged on and ugly when taken off.

The CS2 in the mid 80s got more serious as we increased our precision of acoustic measurement and understanding. The tweeter wave guide became more sophisticated; the wave launch profiles of all 3 drivers were supported by the grille frame, the fabric was engineered for transparency on axis and absorption off axis, and the outside edge was engineered to minimizetweeter diffraction. It was successful EXCEPT that Larry Archibald of Stereophile printed multiple critiques of the "harshness" of the CS2. When we all figured out that he used and measured them without grilles, he re-visited their performance, but never admitted his mis-use as causing his problems. He stated that Thiel had upgraded and mitigated the problems he had heard and reported. Hmmm. 

The CS1 series incorporated an even more sophisticated grille for wave launch and baffle vibration damping. 

Similar issues prevailed through the years, with the common thread being that users' preconceptions about the harm of grilles persisted. In the case of Thiel products, the grille was always an integral design element. They were in place during development, voicing and testing. Removing them may provide a more immediate on-axis connection, but problems are always introduced which degrade musicality. More recent models incorporate the wave guides into the baffle, and the grille frames are farther aft, minimizing harm when not used, or non-existent. Newest models use perforated or woven metal, which is more transparent.

One of my intended experiments employs wool felt on baffles. We tried that early-on to good effect, but opted for grille fabric and frame solutions as more cost- effective and good-looking. I'll try some soft baffle ideas on my CS2 2s.

Well, it is an older rather unique design.:-)

i had forgotten that

The Thiel CS 2's grills are an extension of the baffles.

speaker grills:  friend or foe.  https://audiophilereview.com/affordable-speakers/speaker-grill-covers-friend-or-foe.html

AudioMachina and the original Ohm's with genuine Walsh drivers might be added to the above list of time coherent designs.

congrats Pwhinson.  sounds like you hit a home run with the Pass amp.

Professor:  do you have a small stereo shop in your home.   that is a heck of a speaker collection. 

I've lived with the Pass Labs x150.8 on my Thiel 2.4s for a little over a week now and I am absolutely astonished at what a change this has wrought, both over the Bryston 4b3 which I had for a little over a week and my long term reference, the Aesthetix Atlas.  At first I wondered if the Pass midrange wasn't a bit too ripe and the top was a bit soft but the Pass brings together a density of texture in orchestral swells that sound alot like real symphonic music to me (and I attend about 16 or so Atlanta Symphony concerts every season).  The Bryston sounds thin in the lower midrange than the Pass, again it is a wholly different sound that anyone could recognize over the Bryston.  Its an improvement to a lesser degree over the Aesthetix Atlas as well.  The Pass renders music that is simply beautiful, liquid, incredibly detailed but also with a richness of tone that is hard to describe.  You owe it to yourself to try the Pass on your Thiels.  I am so convinced that I'm contemplating giving the Pass preamp maybe the x12 a try.  Also as a reminder I was prepared to spend more on my amp than the Pass x150.8 buying instead into the XA series of monoblocks but Kent at Pass convinced me to spend alot LESS, convincing me to go with his recommendation.  The x150.8 is plenty of power.  Its not cheap but its just flat out amazing.  You have to hear it.

Dan,
You’re gonna get us kicked off this thread ;-)

I’ve got another long thread going detailing my auditions of many speakers, often comparing against my Thiels. Most don’t fully hold up.I even preferred my Thiels to the latest Magical A3 speaker.

I am however smitten by Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (incredible purity of tone) and Devore Fidelity Orangutan speakers (they sound very organic, richer than most speakers, yet do rhythm/drums etc in a super compelling manner).


Other speakers I really like are ones I own: Waveform (very neutral yet warm tone, image like crazy, very palpable), my MBL 121 omnis (incredible tone, peerless 3 dimensional imaging), and my small little Spendor S3/5 (which are so smooth, open, rich and engaging they always have me wondering at first "Maybe this is all I need!" until I put on content that really needs some bass foundation).  And my Hales Transcendence 1 speakers (which do HT duty, but I often hook them up to my two channel system for a change.  Incredible timbral beauty, rich, spacious, though missing the palpability factor of the Thiels)   All spend some time in my system at one point.

The thing I come back to with the Thiels is the coherence, lack of speaker/box artifacts, tone and density/palpability of the sound.

Dan:  I certainly understand about your speakers starting to morph.   mine were actually pretty bad the first night i heard them but now they are fantastically good.
Jeff Joseph speakers are great and I am adding Magico because I liked what I heard with their new baby speaker, but not enough to want to not keep the 3.7's. O course being a PS Audio guy,   their new AN speakers are sure to be great.  

Dunlavy, Duntech, Green Moutain, Meadowlark, Quad 63’s +>, jump to mind.

Most of you have identified phase coherence as a necessary ingredient for "reality music", rather than the hi fi approximation. As far as I know, Vandersteen is the only maker other than Thiel who produces actual minimum phase speakers. Their bias is towards "easier", less "incisive", but they are very good. Please advise of any of these other makers are phase coherent transducers.

Dan - the eventual list includes the x.7s. But they are so much more current that I feel obligated to take on older models first.

I have commented previously on listening position. I understand that any particular room and preferences may dictate many different positions. Crossover frequencies x propagation lobing patterns require those distances for proper integration. Anything closer or higher or lower may produce pleasant effects, but will trade off against some of the factors of fidelity.From a scientific standpoint, there is one position that replicates the design goal of minimum phase and flat tonal balance with optimum transient response. That position is minimum 2.5 meters (100"), with 3 meters (10') being a little better with an ear height of 3'±2". The more the distance, the less critical is ear height as well as toe-in.

The coincident upper driver of the x.7s greatly reduce the distance requirement.

Tom

Prof I am going to miss your 3.7-2.7 comparisons! My 3.7 which were also purchased through Rob are starting to morph, WOW! I have gone back many times to reread everyone's comments and each time i learn and discover more about these fine instruments and our obsession with them.   

Mr Tom Thiel when are you going to work on 2.7 or 3.7 you can put me on the short list ;)   

Yes I am absolutely smitten with my Thiels and will leave them for my kids one day, but here is the Taboo question what is another speaker you would want to own. Maybe with a diffrent trait? I have found I love hearing the Thiels on diffrent gear and switch back a forth. With that i would love to know what this group would choose as an alternate speaker. Here is list I have been playing with  PMC, ATC, Devore, ProAc, Vandersteen.

Dan      

i have played with it over the years and found sitting with my ear about 4" below the tweeter and about 7.5'-8' away  from the drivers works best

^Proper driver integration and time synchronization for most Thiel’s works best at least 8’ away for a listener at typical seating height.

there is a lot of valuable and useful tips on the Mapleshade website.  here are two that are relevant to the post above:  http://www.mapleshadestore.com/freeupgrades.php

Room Set-up & Speaker Placement Try Near Field Listening

Almost everybody sits way too far from their speakers, that is, 8' to 10' or more. Try a low chair (or floor pillow) 5' away. You’ll hear a phenomenal increase in clarity, bass impact, and soundstage—roughly like spending 100% more on your speakers. Sitting close (aka near-field listening) tremendously reduces all room acoustic problems and the need for expensive room treatments.

Sit Low To The Floor

Nearly everybody sits too high. The "tweeters at ear level" rule sounds logical but almost always fails when tested. Every speaker has a different optimum listening height; if you’re off the optimum ear height, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Test by sitting on one, then two, then three phone books on the floor at your normal listening spot. At the optimum height, you’ll hear an amazing new warmth and fullness in baritone voice, trombones, tenor sax, plucked bass—and a far more natural treble balance.

The listening height thread reminded me that I think anyone who finds Thiels to be bright sounding should try fiddling with the height of their seat a bit.  I find this can make a noticeable difference in the balance and it's free.

Happy Friday - All.

unsound - I agree. I don't know why Jim designed for such low system impedance. I can speculate that marginally lower distortion in the driver motor may be had via lower driver impedance . . . BUT all the amplification problems caused by low impedance are a huge negative factor in system performance. As I've mentioned, he called those problems "amp problems". I don't know enough to speculate meaningfully.